A breach of protocol...

...I'm breaching my usual protocol of Saturdays being golf free after my medal round to make a quick blog post. I'm really excited about today's round. Not so much by the score, a reasonable-to-good 94, as to how it was achieved.

I'm resolved to ignore score on the course, instead I'm focusing on being absorbed in the process on every shot. I was by no means perfect today (I kept a rough scorecard of how many shots I was in the process, will work it out and post later), but I really started to get the feeling of being process focused on a number of shots. I also played creatively, and I'm really proud of quite a few of the shots I managed to create. I also had 6 or 7 2 putts where the 1st putt looked like it might drop, and the 2nd putt was a tap-in. Although I lost my focus and got caught up in results on a couple of shots on 16, I managed to pull it together for the last couple of holes. But by goodness, the tendency to return to a results focus is strong, but this should fade as my trust in the process focus is reinforced. I also noticed that when I alter my initial gut reaction (for example put more or less force in my swing from my initial practice swing) I wished I'd trusted my original instinct. I'm therefore going to trust my first instinct! I'm going to have the very enjoyable difficulty of working out just which of my good shots I'll record at 3 good shots.

Much to enjoy, and to be proud of. I'm excited about the future. The lingering feeling? The feeling you get as you "come to" from focusing on the process of hitting a shot (almost a fugue state) and realise with a frisson of pleasure that the ball is doing exactly what you planned.

This of course means you've executed the shot exactly as planned - because the ball always does what it's told.
(Thanks to Kendal & Scott for that one ;-)